Facebook stole my daughter's words

Note:  Updated 11/7/2010 to clarify some points, particularly regarding her posts on other people's pages.

Also:  I grant unlimited permission to reprint all or parts of this posting to any person or organization.  Please credit to Kathleen Yockey, Mother of Michaela Thomas.  My contact information is katylynnsays@gmail.com. 

After Michaela's accident, Facebook became our communication tool of choice.  It just made sense.  It was a way to communicate almost instantly with all of her friends and much of our family.  We set up a separate page to pass information and request prayers (Prayers for Michaela Thomas) and later to share information about a scholarship set up in her name (Michaela Thomas Heart of the RA Award) to include those people who were not her friends on Facebook.  She was particular about her friend list on Facebook.  She thought it was ridiculous to have a 1000 friends, so frequently she would 'unfriend' people who she didn't have a current personal relationship with.  By doing that, she made it very clear who should have access to her site and who should not.  She had about 200 Facebook friends.  She also had 1000s of pictures, pages of notes, and quite a few videos that she had deliberately posted on Facebook to share with those friends.

After she died, some of her friends became worried about what would happen to her Facebook page.  Facebook claims that they will not delete an account for inactivity, but that didn't make us comfortable.  What if they changed their mind?  Would they announce that change?  How would they announce it?  In a message to the account holder (that nobody would ever see)?  It was very important to me and to her young friends that her Facebook be preserved, intact.  So we did some research and found this information (or very similar, I believe it has been reworded slightly to include 'status updates'), regarding "Memorializing" a Facebook page.

When a user passes away, we memorialize their account to protect their privacy. Memorializing an account removes certain sensitive information (e.g., status updates and contact information) and sets privacy so that only confirmed friends can see the profile or locate it in search. The Wall remains so that friends and family can leave posts in remembrance. Memorializing an account also prevents all login access to it.

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Based on the wording of this statement, we decided the best, safest, thing to do would be to memorialize the page.  Based on the wording of this statement, we believed that the only thing that would change on her page was removing her 'personal identifying information' or what might be considered sensitive information like addresses, phone numbers, personal email accounts, etc.  What we didn't think would happen was that her page would be stripped down to the basics and ALL of HER words would be removed!  These are words she CHOSE to share publically with the 200 people on her friends list.  SHE CHOSE.  This isn't something I wanted made public on her behalf, it is what she had ALREADY made PUBLIC.  How is privacy an issue here?

What do I mean by ALL of her words, exactly?  Let me tell you what Facebook removed in detail so you don't make this same mistake:

1.  They removed her family connections, so she no longer shows up on my page as my daughter with a link.

2.  They removed the Info tab that listed her likes and dislikes, music, movies, books, etc.  (things she CHOSE to share about herself.  Things her friends might like to remember about her.

3.  They removed her final status which was:  "Poor MJ, now that he is no longer living, he is just a legend", did they not think her family and friends would like to look back at the reference to Michael Jackson and smile a bit?  Is there something private or sensitive about that?

4.  They removed ALL of her previous status updates.  So her friends and family can no longer look back at what she said on a particular day and use that to trigger a happy memory of a particular moment in time.

5.  They removed her posts from EVERYONE ELSE's wall, including mine.  Everything she posted on MY WALL for ME to read is gone.  You can no longer see what used to be called "Wall to Wall" and is now called "View Friendship".  The link is there, but it is a one sided conversation with all of her responses and posts to her friend (me in this case) DELETED.

6.  They removed her Notes tab.  All of the little poems she wrote, all of the comments on society that she thought about, all of the rants about college life that she wrote deliberately TO BE READ are gone.  (Interestingly, although they disappeared from her page, if I dug deeply through my own notes, I could drill down to her notes, by clicking 'notes about me' (there was one she wrote about me), and then clicking 'more notes by Michaela Thomas'.  That lasted a few months before FB discovered that hole and plugged it.  But it certainly showed me that her information was still out there (and this information will become important later).)

7.  They removed her Videos.  Every single one of them.  Gone.  Her voice, her laugh, her silly faces.  Gone. Videos again, that she made and took the time to upload, because she wanted to SHARE them.

8.  They removed her friends ability to tag her in a Video or a Note.  So even if I had a copy of the video that FB so viciously deleted (deleted?), there was no way for me to tag her and make it visible to her many friends who would love the opportunity to hear her voice again.

9.  They removed all of her other tabs (except photos).  Things like her music, bumperstickers, and such.  Just things she collected and liked and CHOSE to SHARE.

What did they leave?  Her wall, but with everything important stripped from it.  As much as I like her friends, it isn't them or their words I want to read.  (We made a separate page just for that purpose!) It is the words she wrote that I want to see.  Her photos.  Her profile picture.  The comment under her profile picture "I am So Excited".  And that is about it.  The whole soul of her page has been ripped out. 

This happened over a year ago.  As soon as I saw what they had done, I contacted Facebook and requested they put it back.  I was told no.  That once a page is memorialized, there is no way to restore it.  I begged, I ranted, I complained about the statement and how misleading it was (is).  I calmly suggested that they at least reword the statement making it much clearer so that no other mother has to lose her child's words because she didn't understand the policy.  Nothing has been done.  And quite honestly, I didn't have the strength or energy during the darkness of my early grief to fight the situation.

So why am I bringing it up now?  Well, something strange started happening.  Suddenly, in the upper right hand corner of my "home" page, where the cute little reminders pop up showing you pictures and videos from the past, HER VIDEOS, those videos that FB removed from her page, the ones they couldn't restore to her account...those very same videos started appearing.  Not only that, but I could watch them and share them and her friends could tag themselves in them!!!  But they still weren't on her page.  So wait, are they protecting her privacy or not?  I thought those videos were so sensitive they couldn't be on her page any longer?

But now there is even something newer (and worse) going on.  For the past 24 hours her page has been gone.  Completely gone.  I hear from other people that other "memorialized" pages are also gone.  I am not panicked yet.  I believe this is temporary.  My guess is that FB discovered the error that was causing the videos and pictures of "memorialized" pages to be appearing as reminders and has shut down all the memorialized pages to install some kind of fix.  I hope this is the case.  But it sure would be nice of them to let us know what is going on, wouldn't it?  After all, somebody had to request those pages be memorialized, so they must know who to notify, right?  Why make a grieving parent or sibling suffer through not knowing what is happening to their loved ones page?  Is it being raped further?  Is it gone forever?  I have no idea.

 

What I do know is that I want her pages back.  All of them.  Like they were on the day she died.  And I want Facebook to post a responsible statement about exactly what happens to a Facebook page that is memorialized.  I want to know who those words, pictures and videos belong to now.

Facebook has been lauded all over the national media for their compassionate handling of the accounts of dead persons.  But who is writing these articles?  Facebook?  Has anybody else felt robbed after doing this to their child's page?  Where is the other side of the story?  I even was party to having a newpaper article published praising Facebook for being a valuable communication tool during our grieving (before I memorialized the page).  But, I certainly was NOT treated with compassion when I contacted them about what they did to my daughter's page. 

Yes, perhaps the person's identifying information (addresses, email, phone number) should be removed to protect the privacy of the surviving family.  Perhaps the 'reminders' to get in contact with them or view their old videos shouldn't pop up on an unsuspecting mourners 'home' page.  But for those of us who want to visit her page and see her words and hear her voice by our own CHOICE and HERS, why on earth would Facebook take that away?

Please share this information with anyone you know who is in my situation.  Please pass this information on, so no one else gets hurt by Facebook's so called 'privacy' policy regarding memorialization.  Don't let anyone else lose their child's (friend's, lover's, grandchild's, spouse's) precious words because of an inflexible and misunderstood policy.